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Vox
22-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Vox
Christian nationalists decided empathy is a sin. Now it's gone mainstream.
writes about pop culture, media, and ethics. Before joining Vox in 2016, they were a staff reporter at the Daily Dot. A 2019 fellow of the National Critics Institute, they're considered an authority on fandom, the internet, and the culture wars. It's a provocative idea: that empathy — that is, putting yourself in another person's proverbial shoes, and feeling what they feel — is a sin. The Bible contains repeated invocations from Jesus to show deep empathy and compassion for others, including complete strangers. He's very clear on this point. Moreover, Christianity is built around a fundamental act of empathy so radical — Jesus dying for our sins — that it's difficult to spin as harmful. Yet as stunning as it may sound, 'empathy is a sin' is a claim that's been growing in recent years across the Christian right. It was first articulated six years ago by controversial pastor and theologian Joe Rigney, now author of the recently published book, The Sin of Empathy, which has drawn plenty of debate among religious commentators. Vox Culture Culture reflects society. Get our best explainers on everything from money to entertainment to what everyone is talking about online. Email (required) Sign Up By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Notice . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. In this construction, empathy is a cudgel that progressives and liberals use to berate and/or guilt-trip Christians into showing empathy to the 'wrong' people. Had it stayed within the realm of far-right evangelicals, we likely wouldn't be discussing this strange view of empathy at all. Yet we are living in an age when the Christian right has gained unprecedented power, both sociocultural and political. The increasing overlap between conservative culture and right-leaning tech spaces means that many disparate public figures are all drinking from the same well of ideas — and so a broader, secular version of the belief that empathy is a tool of manipulation has bubbled into the mainstream through influential figures like Elon Musk. Related The religious right is headed toward a revolutionary victory in the Supreme Court What 'empathy is a sin' actually means The proposition that too much empathy is a bad thing is far from an idea that belongs to the right. On Reddit, which tends to be relatively left-wing, one popular mantra is that you can't set yourself on fire to keep someone else warm. That is, too much empathy for someone else can erode your own sense of self, leaving you codependent or open to emotional abuse and manipulation. That's a pretty standard part of most relationship and self-help advice — even from some Christian advice authors. But in recent months, the idea that empathy is inherently destructive has not only become a major source of debate among Christians, it's escaped containment and barreled into the mainstream by way of major media outlets, political figures, and influencers. The conversation began with an incendiary 2019 essay by Rigney, then a longtime teacher and pastor at a Baptist seminary, in which he introduced 'the enticing sin of empathy' and argued that Satan manipulates people through the intense cultural pressure to feel others' pain and suffering. Rigney's ideas were met with ideological pushback, with one Christian blogger saying it 'may be the most unwise piece of pastoral theology I've seen in my lifetime.' As his essay incited national debate, Rigney himself grew more controversial, facing allegations of dismissing women and telling one now-former Black congregant at his Minneapolis church that 'it wouldn't be sinful for him to own me & my family today.' (In an email to Vox, Rigney denied the congregant's version of events.) Rigney also has a longtime affiliation with Doug Wilson, the leader of the Reformed Christian Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho. In practice, what Rigney is typically decrying is any empathy for a liberal perspective or for someone who's part of a marginalized community. In an email, Rigney told me that both he and Wilson developed their similar views on empathy from the therapist and Rabbi Edwin Friedman, whose posthumously published 1999 book, A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix, has influenced not only family therapy but conservative church leadership and thought. In the book, Friedman argues that American society has devalued the self, leading to an emotional regression and a 'low pain threshold.' Alongside this he compares 'political correctness' to the Inquisition, and frames a 'chronically anxious America' as one that is 'organize[d] around its most dysfunctional elements,' in which leaders have difficulty making tough decisions. This correlation of emotional weakness with societal excess paved the way for Rigney to frame empathy itself as a dangerous weapon. Despite using the incendiary generalization, 'empathy is sin,' Rigney told me that it is not all empathy that is sinful, but specifically 'untethered empathy.' He describes this as 'empathy that is detached or unmoored from reality, from what is good and right.' (An explanation that begs definitions for 'reality,' 'good,' and 'right.') 'Just as 'the sin of anger' refers to unrighteous or ungoverned anger, so the sin of empathy refers to ungoverned, excessive, and untethered empathy,' Rigney told me. This kind of unrestrained empathy, he writes, is a recipe for cultural mayhem. In theory, Rigney argues that one should be 'tethered' to God's will and not to Satan. In practice, what Rigney is typically decrying is any empathy for a liberal perspective or for someone who's part of a marginalized community. When I asked him for a general reconciliation of his views with the Golden Rule, he sent me a response in which he brought up trans identity in order to label it a 'fantasy' that contradicts 'God-given biological reality,' while misgendering a hypothetical trans person. The demonization of empathy moves into the mainstream Despite receiving firm pushback from most religious leaders (and indeed most people) who hear about it, Rigney's argument has been spreading through the Christian right at large. Last year, conservative personality and author Allie Stuckey published Toxic Empathy: How Progressives Exploit Christian Compassion, in which she argues that 'toxic empathy is a dangerous guide for our decisions, behavior, and public policy' while condemning queer people and feminists. 'Empathy almost needs to be struck from the Christian vocabulary,' Josh McPherson, host of the Christian-centered Stronger Man Nation podcast and an adherent of Wilson and Rigney's ideas, said in January, in a clip that garnered an outsize amount of attention relative to the podcast episode itself. That same month, Vice President JD Vance struck a nerve with a controversial appearance on Fox News in which he seemed to reference both the empathy conversation and the archaic Catholic concept of 'ordo amoris,' meaning 'the order of love.' As Vance put it, it's the idea that one's family should come before anyone else: 'You love your family, and then you love your neighbor, and then you love your community, and then you love your fellow citizens in your own country,' he said. 'And then after that, you can focus and prioritize the rest of the world.' In a follow-up on X, he posted, 'the idea that there isn't a hierarchy of obligations violates basic common sense.' Vance's statements received backlash from many people, including both the late Pope Francis and then-future Pope Leo XIV — but the controversy just drove the idea further into the mainstream. As part of the odd crossover between far-right religion and online reactionaries, it picked up surprising alliances along the way, including evolutionary biologist turned far-right gadfly Gad Saad. In January, Saad, applying a survival-of-the-fittest approach to our emotions, argued against 'suicidal empathy,' which he described as 'the inability to implement optimal decisions when our emotional system is tricked into an orgiastic hyperactive form of empathy, deployed on the wrong targets.' (Who are the wrong targets according to Saad? Trans women and immigrants.) Related The hidden religious divide erupting into politics In a February appearance on Joe Rogan's podcast, Elon Musk explicitly referenced Saad but went even further, stating, 'The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy — the empathy exploit. They're exploiting a bug in Western civilization' — the 'they' here being the left wing. 'I think empathy is good,' Musk added, 'but you need to think it through, and not just be programmed like a robot.' By March, mainstream media had noticed the conversation. David French had observed the 'strange spectacle' of the Christian turn against empathy in a column for the New York Times. In April, a deep-dive in the Guardian followed. That same month, a broad-ranging conversation in the New Yorker with Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, led to interviewer Isaac Chotiner pressing him about why empathy is bad. The discussion, of deported Venezuelan immigrants wrongfully suspected of having gang tattoos, led to Mohler saying that 'there's no reason anyone other than a gang member should have that tattoo.' (Among the tattoos wrongly flagged as gang symbols were the words 'Mom' and 'Dad' on the wrists of one detainee.) The pro-empathy backlash is fierce The connective tissue across all these disparate anti-empathy voices is two-fold, according to Christian scholar Karen Swallow Prior. Prior, an anti-abortion ethicist and former longtime Liberty University professor, singled out the argument's outsize emphasis on attacking very small, very vulnerable groups — as well as the moment in which it's all happening. 'The entire discourse around empathy is backlash against those who are questioning the authority of those in power,' she told me, 'not coincidentally emerging in a period where we have a rise in recognition of overly controlling and narcissistic leaders, both in and outside the church.' Those people 'understand and appreciate empathy the least.' 'Trump made it okay to not be okay with culture,' Peter Bell, co-creator and producer of the Sons of Patriarchy podcast, which explores longstanding allegations of emotional and sexual abuse against Doug Wilson's Christ Church, told me. (Wilson has denied that the church has a culture of abuse or coercion.) 'He made it kind of cool for Christians to be jerks,' Bell said. 'He made the unspoken things spoken, the whispered things shouted out loud.' Prior believes that the argument won't have a long shelf life because Rigney's idea is so convoluted. Yet she added that it's born out of toxic masculinity, in an age where stoicism, traditionally male-coded, is increasingly part of the regular cultural diet of men via figures like Jordan Peterson. That hypermasculinity goes hand in hand with evangelical culture, and with the ideas Rigney borrowed from Friedman about too many emotions being a weakness. In this framing, emotion becomes non-masculine by default — i.e., feminine. 'Everybody's supposed to have sympathy for the white male, but when you show empathy to anyone else, suddenly empathy is a sin.' — Karen Swallow Prior, Christian scholar That leads us to the grimmest part of Rigney's 'untethered empathy' claims: the way he explicitly genders it — and demonizes it — as feminine. Throughout his book, he argues that women are more empathetic than men, and that as a result, they are more prone to giving into it as a sin. It's an inherently misogynistic view that undermines women's decision-making and leadership abilities. Though Rigney pushed back against this characterization in an email to me, arguing that critics have distorted what he views as merely 'gendered tendencies and susceptibility to particular temptations,' he also couldn't help reinforcing it. '[F]emale tendencies, like male tendencies, have particular dangers, temptations, and weaknesses,' he wrote. Women thus should recognize this and 'take deliberate, Spirit-wrought action to resist the impulse to become a devouring HR department that wants to run the world.' As Prior explains, though, Rigney's just fine with a mythic national human resources department, as long as it supports the status quo. 'Everybody's supposed to have sympathy for the white male,' she said, 'but when you show empathy to anyone else, suddenly empathy is a sin.' What's heartening is that, whether they realize what kind of dangerous extremism undergirds it, most people aren't buying Rigney's 'empathy is sin' claim. Across the nation, in response to Rigney's assertion, the catchphrase, 'If empathy is a sin, then sin boldly' has arisen, as heard in pulpits, seen on church marquees, and worn on T-shirts — a reminder that it takes much more than the semantic whims of a few extremists to shake something most people hold in their hearts.
Vox
30-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Vox
How a Christian relationship expert spun her messy divorce into career gold
writes about pop culture, media, and ethics. Before joining Vox in 2016, they were a staff reporter at the Daily Dot. A 2019 fellow of the National Critics Institute, they're considered an authority on fandom, the internet, and the culture wars. For decades, Christian relationship advice has trended toward regressive ideas about gender: namely, that women should be submissive to their husbands, who in turn are the head of the household. Those ideas arguably penetrated the mainstream with the rise of the tradwife and the idyllic image of the monogamous home life she represents. Yet the romantic lives of modern Christian advice-givers are often a lot more complex than the traditional marriage roles they espouse. Millions of Christian conservative women who follow these authors seem to recognize that the writers' imperfections are part of a longer journey toward self-improvement — a journey that might also reflect their own. Nowhere is that contradiction more evident than in mega-successful Christian author and influencer Lysa TerKeurst. On her way to amassing 3 million followers across social media, writing half a dozen New York Times bestsellers, and launching her own media network, TerKeurst has made messy confessionals a core part of her brand. TerKeurst spent most of the 2010s building her brand out of affirmative, Instagram-ready self-help advice, leaning heavily on the wholesome image of her family and her 25-year marriage. But then, something happened that might have been a dealbreaker for other Christian authors: TerKeurst got a divorce. Vox Culture Culture reflects society. Get our best explainers on everything from money to entertainment to what everyone is talking about online. Email (required) Sign Up By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Notice . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Similar episodes have damaged the careers of Christian celebrities who were branded 'false teachers' and could not overcome perceptions of having sinned. TerKeurst, however, not only acknowledged her own failed relationship — she mined it for further wisdom, placing her among a new wave of Christian self-help authors, who are writing more candidly about their struggles. TerKeurst's audience has responded by making her one of the most successful authors in the genre: She currently has not one, not two, but five books concurrently on the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association's Christian bestsellers list. TerKeurst's popularity appears to demonstrate a longing for a less rigid, more forgiving view of Christian relationships, even as her fans continue to revere the idea of a traditional marriage. TerKeurst made her vulnerability a cornerstone of her brand For decades, the average Christian self-help book has framed marriage as a divinely ordained arrangement that's ultimately about serving God and reifying gender roles. Classic texts like 1963's Fascinating Womanhood and 1984's Passion and Purity that are still popular today forward antiquated views on women (for example that man is 'the initiator,' woman 'the responder' and 'helper'), while the purity culture that dominated the books of the '90s continues to influence today's authors. From the beginning, TerKeurst was an outlier in advocating mutual partnerships in marriages — a theme well out of step with her peers. The theme of women's submission to men was and is ubiquitous. To get a flavor, just read a passage from Stormie Omartian's 1996 bestseller The Power of a Praying Wife: 'Lord, help me to be a good wife,' she writes. 'Take my selfishness, impatience, and irritability and turn them into kindness, long-suffering, and the willingness to bear all things.' It was into this crowded, archaic environment that TerKeurst, in the early 2000s, launched her long and determined writing career, peddling general advice aimed mainly at Christian women. From the beginning, she was an outlier in advocating mutual partnerships in marriages — a theme well out of step with her peers. In 2002, for example, she published a pair of guides, one for men and one for women, in which she outlined her marriage philosophy. She parroted the usual evangelical tropes about submission and gender difference (one chapter of her women's guide is titled 'Boys will be boys'), but she also pointed out to men that 'Your wife needs you to be her teammate in raising the kids and taking care of the home.' TerKeurst also blogged incessantly, gradually building a following by focusing on lifestyle and dieting advice. Among her key attributes was vulnerability: In 2008, she wrote about getting an abortion a few months after she began dating her husband, and how the accompanying guilt and shame subsequently impacted her marriage. Her breakout success didn't come until her 14th release, 2011's Made to Crave: Satisfying Your Deepest Desire With God, Not Food. TerKeurst's spin on diet culture, and the divine stamp she put on the pressure to be thin, proved popular. The book wound up hitting the New York Times bestseller list, reportedly selling 200,000 copies in nine months. From there, TerKeurst became a frequent contributor to NBC's Today Show, helping her reach a wider audience. When things went south, she wrote her way out From the start of her writing career, TerKeurst wrote about ongoing issues in her marriage; in 2002's Capture Her Heart, she wrote about starting off the marriage with a host of issues and seeing multiple couples counselors without success. A decade and a half later, in a since-deleted 2017 blog post, TerKeurst revealed that her husband had been having an affair for several years, as well as experienced substance abuse. 'I've always encouraged women to fight for their marriages and to do everything possible to save them when they come under threat,' she wrote. 'So, for the past couple of years I have been in the hardest battle of my life trying to save my marriage.' The news drew shocked reactions, but many of TerKeurst's fans were sympathetic. 'Art and Lisa TerKeurst are a fairly 'famous' Christian family,' one Christian blogger wrote after TerKeurst's post announcing her divorce. 'Now, through her transparency in the demise of her marriage, I have learned something about my marriage ... At some point, Art TerKeurst made one bad choice that led to a slew of others. And so can I. And so can my spouse. And so can you and yours.' Despite her intent to get a divorce, the following year the couple renewed their vows instead in a high-profile ceremony. That new recommitment didn't last, however; in 2022, TerKeurst detailed in an Instagram post that despite ongoing efforts to repair her marriage, her husband had continued to cheat, ultimately firming her resolve to choose divorce. 'I've had to learn the hard way there's a big difference between mistakes (which we all make) and chosen patterns of behavior that dishonor God and the biblical covenant of marriage,' she wrote. TerKeurst wasn't the only high-profile Christian advice author who was caught up in a divorce scandal through this period; Christian blogger Glennon Doyle had a similar experience in 2016, only to swiftly fall for another woman, break with evangelical culture, and start a hit liberal podcast. TerKeurst, though, chose a less rebellious path: She continued to publish her relationship advice to her audience of Christian women looking for love in a so-called traditional marriage — only now her emphasis shifted to processing the trauma of a failed relationship. Rather than sticking out a toxic situation at all costs, she now leaned into the idea of letting God help her and her audience heal from heartbreak and betrayal while learning to set boundaries. 'We can't enable bad behavior in ourselves and others and call it love,' she wrote in 2022's Good Boundaries and Goodbye. 'We can't tolerate destructive patterns and call it love.' And in 2024's I Want to Trust You, but I Don't: 'Rebuilding trust requires a combination of three things: Time, believable behavior, and a track record of trustworthiness.' TerKeurst's flavor of Christian self-help is becoming more and more common This message of empowerment and insistence on the right to exit a floundering relationship is a far cry from the vast majority of Christian advice literature, with its emphasis on submission and staying in the marriage at all costs. But it's increasingly a part of the literary and social media diet of Christian women. 'Christian women authors, as with many mainstream women authors, derive a lot of their authority from their vulnerability,' journalist Katelyn Beaty, author of Celebrities for Jesus: How Personas, Platforms, and Profits Are Hurting the Church, told Vox in an email. 'Self-disclosure in the form of storytelling is a kind of credentialing.' Overly idealized social media feeds and stories from influencers have even drawn backlash from audiences for presenting a false view of Christianity. Women are now gravitating toward influencers like TerKeurst who offer a less glossy version of their lives. 'Christian women want to feel that their favorite authors and Instagram follows are as flawed and 'broken' as they are,' Beaty said, 'even if they still appear on social media with perfect hair, beautiful families, and fashionable clothing.' 'Christian influencers and self-help experts are still held to a high moral and spiritual standard,' she added, citing influential figures like Carl Lentz, who was fired from Hillsong Church after an affair and allegations of abusing his staff. 'But authors may be held to a lower standard than people in official church and ministry leadership positions…Christians can relate strongly to a story of confessing sin, admitting brokenness, and seeking forgiveness and change.' Related JD Vance accidentally directed us to a crucial moral question While TerKeurst's embrace of her own relationship difficulties has only boosted her marketability, she isn't without controversy. Her conservative detractors have claimed that she's too liberal, while others have accused her of forwarding various 'non-Biblical claims,' including 'instructing men,' and for allying with proponents of the controversial prosperity gospel. Other critics have pointed out that her media company, Proverbs 31 Ministry, accepted $690,000 in Paycheck Protection Program loans following the pandemic, despite her lucrative income; her speaker fees alone reportedly range from $20,000 to $30,000. In 2024, about two years after TerKeurst's divorce announcement, she remarried and restarted newlywed life. Her books, however, are still looking backward: Her next release, due this fall, is titled Surviving an Unwanted Divorce.
Daily Mail
22-04-2025
- Health
- Daily Mail
Beauty guru who traveled to Korea for 'harmless' skincare treatment returns home blind in one eye
A beauty guru who traveled to Korea for a 'harmless' skincare treatment has returned home blind in one eye. In a now-deleted TikTok that raked in millions of views, Esther Jeong, from California, explained that she was recently injected with a collagen stimulant. 'I didn't get surgery. I didn't get filler. I got what I thought was a very harmless skin booster,' she explained in the video, per a duet of the original video. Right after the injection, Esther claims that she lost sight in her eye with her doctor assuring her that it was a temporary side effect from the anesthesia. However, her vision did not return. Esther said that she then went to the emergency room where she was told her vision could have been saved had doctors reversed the treatment within the first two hours. The devastated content creator has since spoken to ophthalmologists who confirmed that she had suffered blockages in the branch arteries of her eyes leading to dead retinal tissue. Esther said the vision in her left eye is like 'dead pixels' on a screen, according to Daily Dot. 'Anything I focus on, whenever I move my eye, it's like completely erased. It has been so traumatic, it's been a nightmare,' she said. 'Because, as you know, I'm a designer and I'm a ceramic artist, and my livelihood is based off of what I see.' She said that she had remained in Korea to try experimental treatments to get her eyesight back - but nothing had worked. Once Esther was aware that her lack of eyesight was permanent, she started to seek compensation. 'I just fear it won't be fair compensation, because this will impact my career, my future, and there's just so much uncertainty on how I can live a fulfilling life after this incident,' she admitted. 'It's been emotionally, mentally, financially draining.' She concluded: 'I think people go to Korea and do all these skin treatments thinking that it's like an easy and quick thing. And that's what I thought, too, even though I did research for over a year and thought it was safe. 'But something like this happened. I became a statistic somehow. So I just want people to be aware that things like this could happen.' Eye doctor Alexa Hecht explained in a TikTok video that based on her claims, Esther appears to have suffered from a branch retinal artery occlusion. 'This happens when material accidentally enters a blood vessel during an injection and travels to the back of the eye called the retina and blocks oxygen and blood flow,' the medical expert said in her own TikTok video about Esther's situation. Dr. Alexa added that this complication is rare but can cause 'sudden, irreversible vision loss.' Users in the comments chimed in about their own experiences of blindness from other treatments. 'I just went blind in my left eye due to a retinal detachment!' one wrote. 'Mine happened out of state and no one would see me due to my insurance. I'm an artist as well. It's been so so traumatizing.' Others urged Esther to sue and expose the doctor and their practice. 'Please do not hesitate to name the doctor and his practice. THIS is medical negligence,' they commented. 'If the settlement is not enough for you, please seek legal advice and potentially sue. THIS is an ADVERSE EVENT.' Another wrote: 'Girl, this is a HUGE LAWSUIT.'
Vox
14-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Vox
The unlikely origins of a (literal) blockbuster at the box office
writes about pop culture, media, and ethics. Before joining Vox in 2016, they were a staff reporter at the Daily Dot. A 2019 fellow of the National Critics Institute, they're considered an authority on fandom, the internet, and the culture wars. The biggest movie in the world right now sends its characters on a journey through a building-block world full of zombies, talking pigs, and magical artifacts. A Minecraft Movie has raked in hundreds of millions of dollars in theaters around the globe since it opened last weekend, not only outperforming expectations by double but smashing them like a bunch of pixelated wooden blocks in the videogame it's based on. The film, with its PG rating, was aimed at tween boys, and they have responded in droves, filling theaters and turning viewings into cacophonous interactive events. This huge audience, and audience reaction, underscores the fact that Minecraft is the most popular game in history — and it's not even close. The game's 200 million active players, mostly young men and boys, log in daily to virtually 'mine' blocks and build creations of their own making, either with friends or solo; it's sometimes compared to a tricked-out digital version of Legos. Still more Minecraft fans don't play at all but rather interact with the game by watching other people play in YouTube vlogs or Twitch livestreams. Players can explore and create in the game's essentially infinite landscape, as well as go on traditional gaming quests to defeat enemies. Since Minecraft was first released in 2009, it's become a staple of both gaming and YouTube culture, spawning a massive community of fans and an entire cottage industry of influencers who've built their careers playing it. It's no surprise that its jump to the big screen has been a smash, relying on the Gen Z players who grew up on the game. So why do people love it so much? What's with all the literal blockheads? How do you even play Minecraft? Let's find out. The huge, simple, fun, and free world of Minecraft Minecraft is the brainchild of Swedish developer Markus Persson, who launched the game to instant success; its two 2009 test releases drew in thousands, then millions of players. Gamers were compelled by its unique design: rudimentary blocky visuals that manifested in a simplistic landscape of objects like boxy trees and chunky rocks, and characters with big square heads. They found endless possibilities from being able to shape the world however they wanted. Where most other popular games of the aughts were focused on battle or strategy, Minecraft was about worldbuilding, quite literally. You could construct the landscape to your heart's content. You didn't need to know anything about gaming either — you just enter the scene and start digging. This helped attract an especially young fanbase, kids who weren't too far removed from playing with actual Legos. Before the official version even launched in 2011, Minecraft had already garnered 16 million players and spawned not one but two fan conventions. Gamers flocked to construct anything and everything, from intricate detailed rooms to entire massive cities and even a replica of Earth. The game also features other ways of playing — mainly adventure quests — and includes a variety of creatures, animals, and characters to make things more interesting. But the ultimate goal, as Polygon writer and Minecraft expert Cass Marshall explained to Vox, is 'to build cool stuff.' Cosplayers at the first Minecon in 2010. Fandom/Wiki One of the key aspects of Minecraft's staying power and continued growth — allowing it to remain interesting to existing fans while bringing in new ones too — is that it's extremely easy to modify, and there are millions upon millions of mods to be had. Sites like Curseforge and Modrinth let players browse hundreds of thousands of mods to upgrade or alter the way they play the game. Crucially, the vast majority of these mods are free, making Minecraft one of the most accessible games around. Anyone can get started, and hooked players are able to keep upping their game. You can pursue your own aesthetic, try your hand at city planning, or form communities of players and work on an even bigger project with your friends. 'I personally like mining and digging tunnels,' Marshall said, describing the 'tock-tock-tock' sound of the pick that brings them so much joy. Most players, they said, 'have their world where they have their own soothing hobbies.' Indeed, players have praised it as a mental health aid. It's pro-social, too: Researchers have touted Minecraft's potential as a social engagement and community-building tool. Plus, the game has been around for so long that it's evolved a nostalgic appeal for older players, while also being a fully native franchise for Gen Z — a game they grew up with. It all adds up to a mega-franchise whose community has taken on an identity outside of the game. In 2014, Persson sold Minecraft to Microsoft for $2.5 billion, exiting the company he founded just in time to avoid associating Minecraft with the anti-trans, sexist views he soon began expressing. By that point, Minecraft had a whole other life on early YouTube, spawning endless networks of 'Let's Play' game vloggers who filmed themselves playing the game. Known as Minecraft YouTube, this community created its own fandom separate from that of the game, while also boosting the game's visibility. These Minecraft video creators also easily found success on streaming platforms like Twitch, which allow fans to watch their favorite gamers play in real time. Ashray Urs, founder of streaming platform Streamlabs, told Vox that over 3 million players had streamed Minecraft content 'tens of millions of times' since the site launched in 2014, and that the company's data shows Minecraft remains one of the most consistently streamed games on Twitch and YouTube Gaming. 'It started with the game, but the real cultural influence came from the communities these creators fostered around their gameplay and interaction with the IP,' Urs said of the game's status as an incredibly popular intellectual property. 'When someone says they're a 'fan' of Minecraft, they might be fans of the game, but they could also be fans of the creators who elevated its popularity, or the transformative fanworks that emerged from the game's near-limitless constructive mechanics.' That energy built and built for over a decade — until it came spilling out (literally in some cases) at A Minecraft Movie. Gen Z grew up with Minecraft — and vice versa One big reason for A Minecraft Movie's success is the power of memes. Perhaps you've heard Gen Z loves memes? A Minecraft Movie spawned memes from fans starting the moment the first trailer dropped in November. While many in the fandom were initially skeptical, gamers later realized how much of the movie seemed to be fan service aimed at diehard players. Like the audience for Barbie, fans were eager to see new life injected into a beloved childhood product. And when the movie opened, they were ready to unleash their pent-up excitement. There's inherent power and fun in a big online movement coalescing offline, and Minecraft has always been a game that encourages social connection. The chance to congregate around a movie whose lore they were already steeped in may have given Gen Z boys, whose social lives were turned upside down by the pandemic, a novel communal opportunity. Videos of the intense interactive crowds quickly went viral once the film opened, which made going to the movie something of a meme in and of itself. One of the biggest memes to come from A Minecraft Movie is 'chicken jockey,' in which a zombie kid rides a chicken (something that happens in the actual game too, if quite rarely). Clips of the fan reaction to this standout moment — teens standing, hoisting one another on shoulders, yelling out the line, often accompanied by popcorn throwing and at least one actual chicken — have appeared on TikTok, and received a lot of discussion from somewhat bewildered adult onlookers. The in-theater uproar has several things in common with the GentleMinions trend of 2022, where groups of young men attended screenings of Minions: The Rise of Gru in full suits and ties. Yet again, male Gen Z fans of a family-friendly franchise showed up to the theater in full interactive mode. As with the Minions film, those viewers are the ones driving the box office turnout and embracing the film as a community event. The geek culture appeal of both Minecraft stars Jack Black and Jason Momoa probably shouldn't be overlooked as a factor of the movie's success, either; both actors have long resumes of fandom-friendly content (like Black's villainous turn in The Super Mario Bros. Movie, the previous reigning video game movie, or Momoa's Aquaman), and both seem to have fully embraced the spirit of Minecraft as meme. Then there's the actual film, in which our heroes are Minecraft players who find themselves transported from the real world into the game world, here called the Overworld. To escape, Black's creator Steve, Momoa's cynical and competitive Garrett, and audience stand-in kid Henry (Sebastian Hansen) go on a Wizard of Oz-like quest, dodging various mobs of zombies, bees, and llamas along the way. It's all very wholesome for a movie that's spawned such raucous audience participation. As Polygon's Tasha Robinson puts it, 'Garrett learns how to be vulnerable and drop his swaggering pretense of superiority. Steve learns to accept other humans as friends. Henry learns that some people actually like it when he crafts stuff.' Like The LEGO Movie, another massive hit based on the very kid's game that Minecraft is often compared to, the narrative offers a deconstruction of what it means to be a Minecraft player. That said, it's a bit hard to hear the moral that real life is better than virtual reality over the sound of children screeching and hurling movie concessions into the void. The film, now the most profitable game movie in history, has set the property on yet another upward trajectory; just as YouTube opened up a whole new avenue for Minecraft-related content and fandom, Hollywood will too. Just don't expect this shift to change the fundamental nature of the game beloved by so many millions of people. 'I'd imagine we'll be getting more movies, maybe an animated show, more spin-offs — but Minecraft itself remains eternal,' Marshall said.
Vox
11-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Vox
Minecraft's massive, blocky success, explained
writes about pop culture, media, and ethics. Before joining Vox in 2016, they were a staff reporter at the Daily Dot. A 2019 fellow of the National Critics Institute, they're considered an authority on fandom, the internet, and the culture wars. The biggest movie in the world right now sends its characters on a journey through a building-block world full of zombies, talking pigs, and magical artifacts. A Minecraft Movie has raked in hundreds of millions of dollars in theaters around the globe since it opened last weekend, not only outperforming expectations by double but smashing them like a bunch of pixelated wooden blocks in the videogame it's based on. The film, with its PG rating, was aimed at tween boys, and they have responded in droves, filling theaters and turning viewings into cacophonous interactive events. This huge audience, and audience reaction, underscores the fact that Minecraft is the most popular game in history — and it's not even close. The game's 200 million active players, mostly young men and boys, log in daily to virtually 'mine' blocks and build creations of their own making, either with friends or solo; it's sometimes compared to a tricked-out digital version of Legos. Still more Minecraft fans don't play at all but rather interact with the game by watching other people play in YouTube vlogs or Twitch livestreams. Players can explore and create in the game's essentially infinite landscape, as well as go on traditional gaming quests to defeat enemies. Since Minecraft was first released in 2009, it's become a staple of both gaming and YouTube culture, spawning a massive community of fans and an entire cottage industry of influencers who've built their careers playing it. It's no surprise that its jump to the big screen has been a smash, relying on the Gen Z players who grew up on the game. So why do people love it so much? What's with all the literal blockheads? How do you even play Minecraft? Let's find out. The huge, simple, fun, and free world of Minecraft Minecraft is the brainchild of Swedish developer Markus Persson, who launched the game to instant success; its two 2009 test releases drew in thousands, then millions of players. Gamers were compelled by its unique design: rudimentary blocky visuals that manifested in a simplistic landscape of objects like boxy trees and chunky rocks, and characters with big square heads. They found endless possibilities from being able to shape the world however they wanted. Where most other popular games of the aughts were focused on battle or strategy, Minecraft was about worldbuilding, quite literally. You could construct the landscape to your heart's content. You didn't need to know anything about gaming either — you just enter the scene and start digging. This helped attract an especially young fanbase, kids who weren't too far removed from playing with actual Legos. Before the official version even launched in 2011, Minecraft had already garnered 16 million players and spawned not one but two fan conventions. Gamers flocked to construct anything and everything, from intricate detailed rooms to entire massive cities and even a replica of Earth. The game also features other ways of playing — mainly adventure quests — and includes a variety of creatures, animals, and characters to make things more interesting. But the ultimate goal, as Polygon writer and Minecraft expert Cass Marshall explained to Vox, is 'to build cool stuff.' Cosplayers at the first Minecon in 2010. Fandom/Wiki One of the key aspects of Minecraft's staying power and continued growth — allowing it to remain interesting to existing fans while bringing in new ones too — is that it's extremely easy to modify, and there are millions upon millions of mods to be had. Sites like Curseforge and Modrinth let players browse hundreds of thousands of mods to upgrade or alter the way they play the game. Crucially, the vast majority of these mods are free, making Minecraft one of the most accessible games around. Anyone can get started, and hooked players are able to keep upping their game. You can pursue your own aesthetic, try your hand at city planning, or form communities of players and work on an even bigger project with your friends. 'I personally like mining and digging tunnels,' Marshall said, describing the 'tock-tock-tock' sound of the pick that brings them so much joy. Most players, they said, 'have their world where they have their own soothing hobbies.' Indeed, players have praised it as a mental health aid. It's pro-social, too: Researchers have touted Minecraft's potential as a social engagement and community-building tool. Plus, the game has been around for so long that it's evolved a nostalgic appeal for older players, while also being a fully native franchise for Gen Z — a game they grew up with. It all adds up to a mega-franchise whose community has taken on an identity outside of the game. In 2014, Persson sold Minecraft to Microsoft for $2.5 billion, exiting the company he founded just in time to avoid associating Minecraft with the anti-trans, sexist views he soon began expressing. By that point, Minecraft had a whole other life on early YouTube, spawning endless networks of 'Let's Play' game vloggers who filmed themselves playing the game. Known as Minecraft YouTube, this community created its own fandom separate from that of the game, while also boosting the game's visibility. These Minecraft video creators also easily found success on streaming platforms like Twitch, which allow fans to watch their favorite gamers play in real time. Ashray Urs, founder of streaming platform Streamlabs, told Vox that over 3 million players had streamed Minecraft content 'tens of millions of times' since the site launched in 2014, and that the company's data shows Minecraft remains one of the most consistently streamed games on Twitch and YouTube Gaming. 'It started with the game, but the real cultural influence came from the communities these creators fostered around their gameplay and interaction with the IP,' Urs said of the game's status as an incredibly popular intellectual property. 'When someone says they're a 'fan' of Minecraft, they might be fans of the game, but they could also be fans of the creators who elevated its popularity, or the transformative fanworks that emerged from the game's near-limitless constructive mechanics.' That energy built and built for over a decade — until it came spilling out (literally in some cases) at A Minecraft Movie. Gen Z grew up with Minecraft — and vice versa One big reason for A Minecraft Movie's success is the power of memes. Perhaps you've heard Gen Z loves memes? A Minecraft Movie spawned memes from fans starting the moment the first trailer dropped in November. While many in the fandom were initially skeptical, gamers later realized how much of the movie seemed to be fan service aimed at diehard players. Like the audience for Barbie, fans were eager to see new life injected into a beloved childhood product. And when the movie opened, they were ready to unleash their pent-up excitement. There's inherent power and fun in a big online movement coalescing offline, and Minecraft has always been a game that encourages social connection. The chance to congregate around a movie whose lore they were already steeped in may have given Gen Z boys, whose social lives were turned upside down by the pandemic, a novel communal opportunity. Videos of the intense interactive crowds quickly went viral once the film opened, which made going to the movie something of a meme in and of itself. One of the biggest memes to come from A Minecraft Movie is 'chicken jockey,' in which a zombie kid rides a chicken (something that happens in the actual game too, if quite rarely). Clips of the fan reaction to this standout moment — teens standing, hoisting one another on shoulders, yelling out the line, often accompanied by popcorn throwing and at least one actual chicken — have appeared on TikTok, and received a lot of discussion from somewhat bewildered adult onlookers. The in-theater uproar has several things in common with the GentleMinions trend of 2022, where groups of young men attended screenings of Minions: The Rise of Gru in full suits and ties. Yet again, male Gen Z fans of a family-friendly franchise showed up to the theater in full interactive mode. As with the Minions film, those viewers are the ones driving the box office turnout and embracing the film as a community event. The geek culture appeal of both Minecraft stars Jack Black and Jason Momoa probably shouldn't be overlooked as a factor of the movie's success, either; both actors have long resumes of fandom-friendly content (like Black's villainous turn in The Super Mario Bros. Movie, the previous reigning video game movie, or Momoa's Aquaman), and both seem to have fully embraced the spirit of Minecraft as meme. Then there's the actual film, in which our heroes are Minecraft players who find themselves transported from the real world into the game world, here called the Overworld. To escape, Black's creator Steve, Momoa's cynical and competitive Garrett, and audience stand-in kid Henry (Sebastian Hansen) go on a Wizard of Oz-like quest, dodging various mobs of zombies, bees, and llamas along the way. It's all very wholesome for a movie that's spawned such raucous audience participation. As Polygon's Tasha Robinson puts it, 'Garrett learns how to be vulnerable and drop his swaggering pretense of superiority. Steve learns to accept other humans as friends. Henry learns that some people actually like it when he crafts stuff.' Like The LEGO Movie, another massive hit based on the very kid's game that Minecraft is often compared to, the narrative offers a deconstruction of what it means to be a Minecraft player. That said, it's a bit hard to hear the moral that real life is better than virtual reality over the sound of children screeching and hurling movie concessions into the void. The film, now the most profitable game movie in history, has set the property on yet another upward trajectory; just as YouTube opened up a whole new avenue for Minecraft-related content and fandom, Hollywood will too. Just don't expect this shift to change the fundamental nature of the game beloved by so many millions of people. 'I'd imagine we'll be getting more movies, maybe an animated show, more spin-offs — but Minecraft itself remains eternal,' Marshall said.
